‘Welcome to the 193rd Country of the World’

The Sydney Globalist’s Foreign Correspondent:

“Let us stand up in silence and respect
Saluting our martyrs whose blood
Cemented our national foundation
We vow to protect our nation
Oh God, bless South Sudan!”-
Excerpt from South Sudan’s National Anthem.

It was December 2010 when we sipped ultra-sweet Sudanese tea overlooking the port at South Sudan’s northern-most city of Malakal. Barges from Khartoum drifted down the Nile and docked to unload their wares. Sturdy labourers pulled crates of mango soft-drink, bags of refined sugar and plastic furniture off the boat and onto trucks bound for stalls throughout the bustling border city and hinterland. During the two decade war with the north that took the lives of millions before formally concluding in 2005, importing products such as molded plastic tables and chairs from traders in Khartoum was a big business- their low cost and portability perfect for a population attempting to lead normal lives in the midst of perpetual fear of aerial bombardment and violent displacement.

Yet this year, after the January 9 vote for separation certified as credible by international observation missions including the United Nations, European Union, Arab League and The Carter Center, the sight of barges from Khartoum being hurriedly unloaded in southern ports has become increasingly rare. Many of the Arab merchants who co-ordinated supply-chains along the Nile departed for the north in the run-up to or immediately after the referendum, crippling trade flows. Meanwhile, recent violence in oil-rich areas of the north, combined with a deliberate trade-embargo by Omar al-Bashir’s regime in Khartoum, has sparked a critical fuel shortage throughout the south. Yet despite the fall-out in north-south relations, the clear southern preference expressed in the 98.83 per cent vote for separation has seen many cast away their weathered plastic furniture and begin to invest in more sturdy, wooden homewares- in the expectation that a durable peace is settling in.

Independence for the Republic of South Sudan occurs on July 9 2011. Unlike secessionist movements in Kosovo and Eritrea, most of the world’s major powers including the United States and China as well as many regional neighbors have already lined up to recognise ‘The 193rd Country of The World’- as the banner at South Sudan’s main airport proudly proclaims. Accession to membership in a series of supranational organisations, including the United Nations, the African League and the East African Community is imminent. Southern separation is also likely to result in the renegotiation of colonial-era agreements on Nile water use between Egypt and Sudan to the developmental benefit of other up-stream states including Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia and Burundi.

As the independence countdown clock in Juba, the new southern capital, ticked to zero, the celebrations and euphoria of the referendum give way to the sober challenges of daily governance. Southern Sudan now embarks on forging a national consciousness. Plans are being developed for Memorials to the Fallen as well as national cultural museums. With the establishment of these institutions of national memory comes reflection and definition of ‘South Sudan’ as a political and cultural entity. Identity politics is fraught with difficulties in many countries, but in a region with more than 200 ethnicities united by decades of subjugation by successive northern regimes, cultivating a positive and unifying national identity will not be simple.

To pass through military checkpoints, constant appeals to ‘Comrade!’ from the driver are usually obligatory to ensure that the young soldiers lift the boom and let you pass. It’s a reminder of the socialist roots of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM). Stories are also rife of former soldiers returning to their townships in the south and claiming land from those who did not serve directly in the southern Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) during the war- especially the many internally displaced people (IDPs) who fled the war to Khartoum. These incidents highlight the problem of defining identity in a nation born out of civil conflict. This post-conflict situation is not unique to Southern Sudan, with similar incidences of militiamen seizing land from IDPs laying the groundwork for local violence in other countries in transition such as Sierra Leone and Liberia.

While recognising the contribution of veterans is central not just to national identity but also social cohesion, privileging direct participation in the armed liberation struggle as the cornerstone of national consciousness may be a narrow and unstable foundation. It’s common to hear arguments that ethnic Dinka from the border regions of Jonglei, Upper Nile, Warrap and Bahr el Ghazal suffered the greatest direct loss of lives in the struggle that led to South Sudanese independence, and that as a consequence they are entitled to the vast majority of government jobs. But in conversations with recent returnees disembarking in southern townships after long, bumpy and often dangerous journeys from Khartoum by bus, shared participation in the conflict was rarely emphasised as the cornerstone of nationhood. As one woman whose beer brewing business was shut down by Sharia’h police in the northern city of Kosti told a colleague, “we just want to brew and pray, whenever and however.” For many, the independence of southern Sudan brings with it an opportunity for freedom of expression and a positive peace underwritten by equal recognition and contribution towards national development.

Support for a broader definition of nationalism is widespread amongst South Sudan’s best educated, many of whom were able to get schooling during the civil war only by escaping to refugee camps in Khartoum or elsewhere in East Africa. Some continued their education on humanitarian visas in North America, Europe or Australia, many of whom sent significant financial aid back to Sudan to support their families and the southern insurgency. This Sudanese diaspora is now beginning to return- trickling back to the new country to start the industries vital to the first stages of post-conflict social and economic development. Setting direct participation in the war effort as a measure of citizenship degrades the contribution of these civilians to the broader war effort, as well as their critical role in building the country’s government and private sector post-independence.

Equating participation in the civil war with the inner-core of national identity is problematic also because citizenship in the new nation of Southern Sudan is not extended to all those that fought- and indeed continue to fight- in the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), the southern army. The rough demarcation of the border between north and south in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in 2005 meant that the south of the country did not include the border regions of South Kordofan, Blue Nile and Abyei. Many communities in these ‘Transitional Areas’ had fought with the SPLA against the regime in Khartoum. Despite the secession of South Sudan, many in these areas continue to support the original vision of a ‘New Sudan’ through the northern branch of the party, SPLM-North. This is a sentiment that is found amongst soldiers in the SPLA, especially those from communities demarcated under the CPA as remaining under the Khartoum regime. As recent citizens hearings in Blue Nile demonstrate, these aspirations are shared by many across the border regions.

“One day, Sudan will be united and free”, a jovial soldier from the Nuba Mountains told me before the referendum last January. In his mid-40s, he wore his dark green uniform with pride as he guarded a military checkpoint just south of the border. Hailing from an indigenous African group within the north that fought with the SPLA in their decades-long struggle for regime-change in Khartoum after enduring decades of violent subjugation, he was surprisingly calm in describing the future of the Nuba Mountains in the north. He told me of enlisting to the army as soon as the war began in 1983- fighting for the freedom of the Nuba as part of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement’s (SPLM) grand vision of a ‘New Sudan’. He grasped that when a cease-fire was called around the Nuba Mountains in 2004, the vision of a united, democratic and secular Sudan held by agricultural economist turned SPLA commander, the late Dr John Garang had lost support from many southern militia leaders. Most of them had concluded that in their lifetimes, regional independence was the only feasible method through which to end the conflict with Khartoum.

The subsequent CPA of 2005 ruled out the potential of a southern future for the ‘Transitional Areas’ of Blue Nile and South Kordofan (though the inhabitants of the border region of Abyei were promised a referendum on their northern or southern future that has so far failed to materialise). Instead, the CPA mandated the conduct of less-formal ‘Popular Consultations’ to gauge their demands for northern reform- essentially non-binding focus group recommendations that the northern regime looks unlikely to adopt. Yet despite the bleak post-independence future of his homeland, he was optimistic that the plight of the Nuba Mountains wouldn’t be forgotten by the new state of Southern Sudan. With the recent resumption of brutal, Khartoum-endorsed violence aimed at suppressing any remnants of separatism amongst the ethnic Nuba of South Kordofan in the run up to southern independence, it is not difficult to recall that Nubian soldier and many of others who fought in the SPLA for a ‘New Sudan’ but whose future for better or worse lie firmly in the north. As all those who served in the SPLA are not part of the new nation of South Sudan, a more durable foundation for national unity must be sought other than military service in the civil war.

Lunch-time in the southern capital of Juba provides a glimpse of what that inclusive nationalism might look like. It’s almost impossible to find a chair in restaurant ‘Mama Zahara’ as hundreds of Southern Sudanese bureaucrats, soldiers, officials, police and NGO workers crowd in daily to feast on some of the best cuisine in the capital. Southern Sudan continues to be classed as one of the World Food Program’s “hungriest places in the world”. Despite the challenges of food insecurity, it’s deeply symbolic to see a new generation of South Sudanese men and women from differing tribal and ethnic backgrounds coming together to share a meal- and even a beer- in a business owned and operated by a Christian woman and her Muslim husband.

How the Republic of Southern Sudan values military service in the civil war in the development of the national memory is critical to the emerging national identity of the world’s newest country. As the independence clock in Juba ticks to July 9th and millions of southerners begin the difficult process of building a durable and meaningful peace, it’s important to remember those just across the newly erected border who share the same scars of violence and oppression, but who have no clear path to freedom.